re: Raid 2/6/14

Malkorok Monday's!! A whole night of that joyous encounter. Overall there was a lot of good to take out of it and we are making great progress for only 40 (24 tonight) wipes :). I mentioned in an earlier report a bit on tactics but I thought I would elaborate more here.

Positioning

Despite advice to the contrary - I quite like having two melee. It means the ranged and healers fit nicely around the edges. I stand on the entrance segment then next to me is a DPS, then a healer etc.

Working round clockwise this was our positioning

Cenaria - Entrance Segment

Petrarch

Xarvoz

Foosfighting - Exit Segment

Sid

Kayrah

With Petrarch hopefully healing next week I will swap him with Sid and place the new DPS in Pet's old spot. As this fight is all about practice and familiarity, it's important to change as little as possible. I put up two markers (blue for entrance, green for exit) just to help people get their bearings.

Soaking

Just like normal the most important thing in this fight is soaking the purple puddles of death. If one goes off (certainly before the first breath) it is pretty much a wipe. As mentioned before - the fight is all about personal responsibility. If there is a puddle in your section you need to soak it. This being said it can sometimes be tricky if orbs have been unkind to your segment then people from adjacent segments need to be aware and jump in. Although the arena is a massive circle you really only need to worry about 1/2 of that (your segment and the two either side). The most important thing is to always return to your original segment as you are the person most responsible for your area

There will always be two pools at ranged and one in Melee. The melee one will always be covered by Sisy or if he can't reach it then it can be soaked by warriors leaping which is useful. Being vocal is very useful as always. Calling out if you can reach a pool makes sure only one person soaks the damage.

Pools come after a smash (three smashes x2 per phase) which means there are 18 pools to soak before phase two. This is doubled to 36 with the second phase one. The enrage hits about 30 seconds after phase two ends which means we will get another lot of pools which puts the grand total to 39 pools. (13 for melee and 26 for ranged)

Orbs of (unnecessary) Death

Orbs are definitely the most frustrating aspect of this fight mainly due to the complete randomness of them. I believe it is something like "Every three seconds two orbs spawn on a random player". This means you can get none for ages or two on you every time. It is imperative to avoid these orbs. They deal 150k damage but the big problem with them is they clear your shield as well. which means if you take about 3/4 you can't really soak the pools which means someone has to effectively cover two segments. Technically you can take a few orbs and as long as you can survive and soak your pools the fight is reset (from a shielding point of view) in phase two where we can heal everyone up.

This aspect of the fight is completely down to YOU so as long as people are aware of the rather subtle orb spawn animation (subtle for a Tauren :P) then you will be fine to dodge them in general. Avoiding orbs just before you soak a pool is very important otherwise you may have to use a big CD.

Phase 2

After the second Breath we enter phase 2. Slightly different from normal mode. There is a few seconds transition where the melee need to move away from the current tank in case they get the magic debuff. In heroic mode the debuff roots you in place and deals 300k every three seconds. The tactic we use is to have everyone spread around the room while Slim tanks Malkorok in the centre. He needs a huge amount of CDs to keep him alive (hopefully with Pet healing this will be easier).

While Slim is being battered everyone else needs to be doing their best to clear orbs without getting to low. Zalid will move out to blue and run through a load moving from segment to segment anti clockwise. He can clear about 1/2 the room if Kayrah uses deterrence and clears some as well. Foos can do his best to clear his segment and everyone else needs to use a CD a get a few from Xarvoz's platform and the one to his right as healers are slightly preoccupied. Remember the orbs are relatively harmless when you take out the shield mechanic (150k hits means everyone can easily soak 3/4 comfortably without CDs) The phase lasts for about 20 seconds and we need to get the room as clear as possible then heal everyone up. We then get another 3/4 second transition then back into phase one

The second time we reach phase 2 just nuke the boss make sure melee and Zalid are behind the boss. No orb clearing the second time due to the imminent enrage - hopefully he will dead pretty soon after.

Most of this is information just to recap on but might be useful as a reminder for next Monday. Not too bad a raid considering the repair bills :D.